I have not shot many buffaloes when hunting on horseback, as in my time these animals were seldom found except in countries infested by the tse-tse fly, which fatally affects horses and cattle. However, I have galloped after at least a dozen herds of buffaloes, riding alongside of them and continually dismounting and firing at one or other of their number. Only on one occasion did an unwounded buffalo leave the herd and charge me. This was a cow which gave me a smart chase for perhaps a hundred yards. It is astonishing at what a speed a buffalo can run when charging. It certainly takes a good horse to get away from one, although when following a herd of buffaloes on horseback one can easily keep alongside of them at a hand-gallop. Even on foot I never found any difficulty in keeping up with a herd of buffaloes and shooting as many as I required to supply my native followers with food. But, of course, the life I led at that time, and the continual hard walking and running necessary to earn my living, kept me in perfect training.
In the interior of South Africa, where the nights are very cold in the winter-time, buffaloes used to get fairly abundant but never thick coats when in their prime. The calves, which were born during January, February, and March, were, when very young, covered with soft hair of a reddish brown colour, but as they grew, the reddish tinge gradually disappeared and they became dun coloured. They did not turn black until they were fully three years of age. The hair of the Cape buffalo when full-grown was always quite black and very coarse. The large ears were bordered with long fringes of soft black hair, and the end of the tail carried a good-sized tassel. When old, both bull and cow buffaloes lost most of their hair, first on the middle of the back; but the baldness gradually increased until very old animals of this species became almost as hairless as a rhinoceros.
In the early 'seventies buffaloes were everywhere very plentiful along the Zambesi and its tributaries, but nowhere so abundant as along the Chobi river. So numerous were they along both banks of this river, that one would have thought that they had reached the very limits of their food-supply. They were usually found consorting together in herds of from fifty or sixty to two or three hundred individuals. Once I saw what I think must have been several large herds collected together, as the total number of the troop could not have been less than a thousand. A grass fire had probably destroyed the pasture on the ground where several herds had lately been living, and they were all moving up the river together in search of food. In districts where buffaloes were plentiful, old bulls, which had either been driven from the herds by younger animals or had voluntarily retired from a society which bored them, would often be encountered either alone or two or three together. But along the Chobi I have often seen from five to ten old buffalo bulls consorting together, and I once saw as many as fifteen very old males in one troop.
"SUCH OLD BUFFALO BULLS WERE VERY SLOW ABOUT GETTING OUT OF ONE'S WAY."
Where the country had not been much disturbed, such old buffalo bulls were very slow about getting out of one's way, and would stand calmly watching the approach of so unaccustomed a visitor to their haunts as a human being without showing any sign of fear. Their demeanour was indeed apparently aggressive and truculent; still, although I have walked up to or close past a very large number in the aggregate of old buffalo bulls, I have never known one to charge before being interfered with. With outstretched noses these formidable-looking creatures would stand gazing at one with sullen eyes from under their massive rugged horns, and would not sometimes run off before sticks and stones were thrown at them; but in my experience they always did run off sooner or later. African buffaloes are, after all, nothing but wild cattle. My Matabele boys used frequently to speak of them as "Izinkomo ka M'limo" ("God's cattle"). I have walked past thousands and thousands of them, and have never known one to charge when unprovoked. But when a buffalo which has been mauled by lions or wounded by some hunter, and is lying sick and sore in long grass or thick bush, suddenly sees a number of human beings advancing towards its retreat, it will very likely jump up and charge through them, inflicting perhaps a deadly blow with one of its massive crooked horns as it passes. Once a buffalo has been wounded and gets into thick jungle or reeds or long grass, it becomes a most dangerous animal, especially to an inexperienced sportsman who has not yet acquired the art of seeing an animal standing motionless in the shade of dense bush as soon as it is physically possible to do so, and who cannot walk noiselessly on the tracks of wounded game.
It has often been stated that on the approach of a herd of elephants to drink at a pool of water, all other animals will at once retire and make way for them. Very likely this may be true as a general rule, but I remember one occasion upon which a herd of some thirty elephants coming down to drink at a vley early in the night, and finding a large herd of buffaloes at the water before them, waited until these latter animals had quenched their thirst and fed slowly off into the forest before themselves going down to the pool.
This happened on a night in November 1873, when the moon, nearly at the full, was shining in a cloudless sky.
I was camped near a fine vley of fresh rain-water in the country to the west of the river Gwai, in Matabeleland, and had just finished my evening meal, when a large herd of buffaloes came to drink, and had hardly reached the water when we saw a troop of elephants approaching. These latter passed very near to my encampment, and must have seen our fires, as one after another they faced towards us, and stood looking in our direction with outspread ears. They did not, however, get our wind, and though they must have been suspicious, they were, I suppose, very thirsty. But as long as the buffaloes remained on the open ground round the pool of water, the elephants did not advance, remaining about a hundred yards away, just within the edge of a thin forest of mopani trees. Directly, however, the buffaloes had fed away into the forest on the other side of the vley, the greater beasts advanced very quickly to the water's edge, and, arranging themselves in a row, stood for a long time sucking up the grateful fluid through their trunks. As they were all cows and young animals, and there were some fine bulls in the district, I did not disturb them. Of course, I cannot say whether or no the buffaloes were aware of the proximity of the elephants, but I am quite certain that the latter not only saw and smelt the wild cattle, but waited until they had retired before themselves advancing to the water.